Multicolor-printing machine.



I 'No. 721,905. I PATENTED MAR. 3, 19 03.

P. H. MOWBRAY.

MULTIGOLOR PRINTING MACHINE.

APPLIUATION FILED SEPT. 15, 1902. no MODEL. 2 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

INVENTOR WITNESSES I I I No. 721,905. PATENTED MAR. a, 1903.

- F. H. MOWBRAY.

MULTIGOLOR PRINTING MACHINE.

APPLICATION IILBDSBPT. 15, 1902.

,NO MODEL. 2 SHEETSSHEE-T 2.

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' NITED STATES ATENT Fries;

FRANK HERBERT MOI/VBRAY, OF BALI-1AM, ENGLAND, ASSIGNOR OF FIVE- SIXTI'IS TO THE PRINTING ARTS COMPANY, LIMITED, OF LONDON, ENG- LAND, AND WILLIAM BLACK, OF WANDSWORTI-I COMMON, ENGLAND.

MULTlCOLOR-PRINTING MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 721,905, dated March 3, 1903- Application filed September 15, 1902. Serial No- 123,489. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRANK HERBERT Mow- BRAY, engineer, asubj ect of the King of Great Britain and Ireland, residing at Glenburnie,

5 Balham Park road, Balham, in the county of Surrey, England, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Multicolor-Printing Machines, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to multicolor-printing machines for printing in several colors at one operation of the machine, the paper or other material (I will refer to it as paper for brevity) to be printed receiving the complete colored design from two or more printing members.

Although numerous proposals have been made in connection with multicolor printing, the only methods which have met with any success in practice are, first, to provide a separate printing member for each color partdesign of a picture, each of the said printing members being employed to print directly and in succession onto the paper, and, sec- 2 5 ondly, to employ, besides the color part-design members, a printing member to which the color designs of the part-design members are transferred in correct register by a transfer member,the said printing member then im- 0 parting the complete multicolor print at one impression to the paper. For ordinary printing the part-design members and the printing member are hard and the transfer member is soft. The former or direct method of printing gives rise to bad register, owing to the distortion of the paper under the printing pressure of the several part-design printing members, while the second or transfer method of printing is open to the objection that mingling of the colors takes place where light and dark colors are superposed on the single printing member, this being especially the case with half-tone and three-color-process work. Further, in some casessuch, for

instance, as where a fine letter-press is to appear upon a solid-colored background-the printing member would necessarily have to be plainthat is to say, the letter-press itself could not be engraved upon the printing 1nemher. In the transferring and printing the sharpness of this letter-press is considerably impaired. I

The object of the present invention is to provide practical means for preventing the fouling or mingling and spreading of the several inks caused by collecting both light and dark inks upon the same printing member and to improve the register by reducing the number of printing members as compared with the number of printing members used in the direct-printing method. This is effected, according to the present invention, by collecting the lighter-color part-designs of the picture upon a printing member common to these only by means of an elastic transfer member or elastic transfer members, the said lighter-color part-designs being thus the first to be printed on the paper, and collecting the remainingthat is, the darker-coloredpartdesigns on another printing member and printing them collectively from this or printing them separately. The printing member for the lighter inks may be provided with a design in relief or in intaglio; but it is preferable to use a plain member, as it then has no tendency to distort the paper and can be used for a number of jobs. By thus printing the lighter colors first the fouling of the part design members for these colors by contact with darker-colored inks is avoided. 8o Thepart-design members and the printing members may be either stereos, electros, zines, or any other known or suitable kind of printing-plates and may be provided with a design in relief or in intaglio. They are each inked with ink of a predetermined color by means of any suitable arrangement of inking and distributing rollers. It will generally be found sufficient to use but two printing members, one for the lighter-color part-designs c and another for the darker-color part-designs; but the number used greatly depends upon the class of work for which the machine is designed-for instance, for three-color-process work one printing member common to yellow and red could conveniently be used and the blue be printed direct from another printing member. Should black be required,

as it frequently is for type-matter or to give depth and finish to the design, the black partdesign may be printeddirect from another printing member, or the blue and black may be collected upon one printing member and be printed collectively, as in the case of the lighter colors. For general work it is advantageous to allow for five colors, and it ispreferred to printfirst in two light colors at one impression, then in two darker colors at the following impression, and finally in the darkest or finishing color, such as black. For the production of high-class artwork it is preferable that each printing member of a multicolor -printing machine should coact with a particular impression member adapted or made ready to bring out such parts of the design of its particular printing member as do not show up strongly enough on the first proof. For this purpose it has been customary in some types of direct-printing machines to employ tapes, chains fitted with gripper-bars, gripper-cylinders, or the like to remove the sheets of paper from the impression member, where they have received one impression, to the next impression member. Machines in accordance with this invention may be fitted with such devices; but for general commercial work they may be dispensed with by imparting to the surfaces of the printing members an accurate finish and by careful underlayiug. To obtain this accurate finish of the printing-surfaces, the printing members may be placed upon acarrier similar to that upon which they Will be seated in the printing-machine and have their surfaces truly ground and polished to the correct printing-line before etching. In the case of curved plates photographically-prepared flexible negatives may be used instead of the customary glass negatives and etching be effected by rotating or rocking the carrier, so that the plates are subjected to the action of a suitable etching fluid.

Machinesin accordance with this invention may be arranged for sheet or web feed, single-side printing, or perfecting, (printing on both sides,) and they may be of the bed-andcylinder or of the rotary type.

In the accompanying diagrams, Figure 1 illustrates the arrangement of a machine for printing in several colors on separate sheets of paper, and Fig. 2 illustrates a machine for printing in several colors on a web of paper, both such machines being arranged in accordance with this invention.

In Fig. 1, A is a carrier adapted to receive three-color part-design members G, H, and I and their common printing member Z. The part-design members G H I are respectively inked by inking-roller sets 1, 2,8, 4, 5, and 6, and the colored part-designs thus formed are transferred in correct register to the printing member Z .by means of transfer members 0, P, and Q gearing with the carrier A. The part-design members G, H, and I are for the lighter colors-such as yellow, pink, and redwhich are printed by the printing member Z at one impression onto the paper. The impression-bed carrier D is in this example provided with one impression member Y and suitable gripping mechanism to hold the sheets of paper, which are fed in at F. The secondary part-design carrier B is adapted to carry a part-design member or part-design members for darker colors. It may, for example, carry one such member J, while 0 is the a third carrier, which may be employed for black part-design or letter-press, (indicated at K.) The character of the work to be done will determine the number of part-design members which the carrier B will carry. Should three light colors be used, these may, as aforesaid, conveniently be collected upon the printing vmember Z Withoutfear of color mingling. Should there also be required, say, a blue and a fine letter-press in black, it is preferred to employ the carrier B for blue only and the carrier 0 for the black only, as by printing the black directly a sharper result would be obtained for the fine letterpress. If, however,-the black design is of such a nature as not to be impaired by the transfer operation, both the blue and black may be transferred to a printing member placed for this purpose on the carrier B, as described with regard to the lighter colors, and the blue and black be printed collectively.

The machine illustrated in Fig. 1 may also be used for, say, seven colorsthree lighter colors being printed by the transfer operation at the first impression from the member Z and three darker colors being printed by the transfer operation at the second impression from .the member J, and black being printed at the third impression from the member K. This arrangement of part-design members on the carrier B is shown at L, M, and N, J being used as the printing member for these three darker colors, and suitable transfer members R, S, and T and inking sets 7 8 and 9, 10, 11, and 12 being provided for inking the part-design members L, M, and N. Suitable inking-rollers are also provided for inking the transfer member K on the carrier 0.

In the machine illustrated by Fig. 2, A is a carrier for a number of color part-design members G, H, and I and their printing member Z. The said members G, H, and I are inked by suitable inking sets 1 2, and 3 4, and 5 6 and represent a part only of the complete multicolor design to be imparted to the paper. On the carrier B is seated the printing member J, which will give the finishing color or black to that part of the paper upon which printing member Z has operated. L, M, and N are letter-press or part-design members inked each in one color, which may be black or other color, as desired, and may serve to print letter-press pages of a magazine or paper. For this purpose two inking sets 7 8 and 9 10 are shown, so that the members J and M, for

instance, may be inked, say, in black by the inking-rollers 7 Sand the members L N be inked, say, in brown by the inking-rollers 9 10. D is the impression-cylinder for the members on the carriers A and B, and R is the impression-cylinder around which the web passes to be printed on the other side by the members S T U V on the carrier W.

X X represent oifset reels, and the direction of travel of the web is shown by the-arrows. The carrier W is shown provided with two sets of inking-gear 11 12 and 13 14, so that the monotony of a magazine or paper maybe broken by having one page, say, in black, the next in brown, and so on. The arrangement whereby each set of inking-rollers is caused to come into contact only with its particular color part-design member or letterpress member may consist in providing the spindle of each inking-roller in the usual manner with a circular disk running upon suitable cam-pieces secured to the periphery of its carrier. that by suitable arrangement of such campieces the rollers can be caused to miss or make contact with such part-design member or members as is desired, springs being provided to bring the rollers into contact with the required members. As only the printing member Z on the carrier A is intended to come into contact with the paper, this member Z is given a greater prominence on the carrier A than the members G, H, and I, and the transfer members 0 P Q are consequently caused to move in grooves y by springs 2' (see Figs. 3 and 4c) and controlling-cam surfaces. The web of paper is shown fed in at w onto the impression-cylinder D, where it receives a complete multicolor page from the members Z and J and three black pages or one colored page from the members L, M, and N. Passing around the cylinder R the web just printed meets the offset web X passing around the reels X and X and the web of paper is then printed on the other side by the members S, T, U, and V.

Figs. 5 and 6 show the invention applied to a combined rotary and flat printing-machine.

In Figs. 5, G H I I are color part-design members, and K is a flat plate or form for printing black type matter or letter-press. Each of the color-plates G H I I is provided with its separate set of inking-rollers, the said sets being operated by cams in the usual manner to ink only their corresponding plate. Oolor part-design members G and H transfer their color part-designs by means of the clastic transfer member R to color collecting and printing member Z, to which are also transferred, by means of the elastic transfer member S, the color part-design from the members I and 1 The form or plate K is supported upon a reciprocating bed and makes one forward and one backward stroke to every revolution of the impression-cylinder D. The said form K is also furnished with its own It will be readily understood set of inking-rollers 9 and 10 and works in registering relation with the cylinders above the bed, all of which run in direct gearing relation with one another. It is not necessary to lift the impression-cylinder D, as this is of thesingle-drum type, and that part of its "surface which is not covered by the impression-bed or tympan is below the printing-line ahd will not therefore come into contact with the form on the return or non-printing stroke. The paper is fed in from feed-board F, meets first the color collecting and printing member Z, from which it receives the colored partdesigns, and comes then in contact with form K, which gives it the finishing-color or black outline or type matter, as the case may be. The color part-design members may all be on one carrier of larger size; but by the use of two carriers with a separate transfer member for each lighter carriers may be used and the color design collecting member Z becomes more properly inked.

In Fig. 6, LMN are color part-design members supported upon a circular carrier A. Upon the same carrier is also supported a color collecting and printing member Z. Each of the members L M N is provided with a set of inking-rollers, each set thereof being adapted to ink its own color-design member only. The color part-designs are then transferred from the color part-design members L M N to the color collecting and printing member Z by means of elastic-transfer members 0 P Q. K is a letter-press or type form carried by a reciprocating bed working in registering relation with the cylinder above the table. As in Fig. 5, the working relations of the said reciprocating bed with the impression-cylinder D are of the single-drum type, by which is understood that the impressioncylinder makes one complete revolution to two strokes of the table, one forward and one backward stroke. In this manner the form K meets on the one stroke that part of the impression-cylinder packed up to take the ICC impression, but clears the unpacked portion of the impression-cylinder on the return stroke. The paper on being fed in from the feed-board F meets first the color collecting and printing member Z, from which it receives the colored part-design and comes subsequently into contact with the form K, receiving a further black or colored design or type matter therefrom in correct register.

Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim is-- 1. In a multicolor printing machine the combination of a hard printing member for printing the lighter inks and hard part-design members for each of suchlighterinks,(and means for inking them with their respective inks) and soft transfer members for conveying the said lighter inks from the said partdesign members to the said printing member, and another hard printing member, and

means for inking it, for afterward printing onto the same portion of the paper, on which the printing of the lighter inks has been effected, the darker ink, to complete the design, substantially as described.

2. In a multicolor-printing machine the combination of a hard printing member for printing the lighter inks and hard part-design members for each of such lighter inks and means for inking them With their respective inks, and soft transfer members for conveying the said lighter inks from the said part-design members to the said printing member and another hard printing member for afterward printing onto the same portion of the paper, on which the printing of the members to the last-named printing member,

substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

FRANK HERBERT MOWBR AY.

Witnesses:

WILLIAM GERALD REYNOLDS, PERCY READ GOLDRING. 

